Okay, what?
 
I’d known, as much as anyone could know anything, that the Skeleton Key would do more for me than it did for Mercer Frey, so long as it worked as advertised. Mercer Frey was a mortal man. The Skeleton Key unlocked someone’s true potential, supposedly. Mercer Frey’s potential would be limited to that of a mortal man, and maybe even further then that. If one were to get philosophical about it, every individual being had their own differing levels of potential. No two people were the like, not even twins.
 
So, Mercer had used the Skeleton Key to unlock HIS potential, which had allowed him to stay ahead of Karliah and Nocturnal and in charge of a decaying Thieves Guild for twenty-five years. And that was pretty impressive, as far as things go if they exist in a vacuum. But at the same time… he was not me and I was not him.
 
I wasn’t a mortal anything. I was a fucking Game Character, in a world that didn’t seem to run on game psychics except for me. I had levels… and apparently, I had a level cap?!
 
There was no level cap in Skyrim. At least, there hadn’t been in a long time. There’d been a soft level cap long ago when the game had first come out, because you could only get every skill to Level One-Hundred once, soft-locking you at Level Eighty-One. But then pretty early on, Bethesda had introduced the concept of Legendary Skills, effectively allowing you to level up indefinitely by prestiging your Level One Hundred Skills back down to Fifteen.
 
And yet… there it was, staring me right in the face. Not only had the Skeleton Key just unlocked my true potential by jumping me from somewhere in the mid-two thousands all the way up to level ten-thousand, but I was also apparently capped at that point. Not that I could imagine a world where I would need Skills over Ten-Thousand. I couldn’t even imagine a world where my Skills were AT Ten-Thousand.
 
Luckily, I didn’t have to imagine such a world. I’d soon be living in one. After a moment’s though, I think ‘tilde’. Sure enough, the world greys out around me as everything freezes up, just like if I’d opened up my game menu. However, unlike usual, there was none of the normal Skyrim menu. Instead, down at the bottom was a bar of darker grey, and inside of it was the Console Interface.
 
… Of course, I still didn’t have a keyboard or anything like that to let me type in Console Commands. Had this been here all along? Had I always been capable of thinking ‘tilde’ and opening the Console? No… no, I had to believe that wasn’t the case. For one, the message I’d gotten had explicitly stated that I unlocked the Console for reaching Level Ten-Thousand. For two, if I’d always been able to open the Console, and hadn’t just because I didn’t try hard enough… I don’t know what I’d do, but it wouldn’t be pretty.
 
So! Console just unlocked. Definitely couldn’t access it before. No need to question that further. Instead, I had another question… how the fuck was I supposed to use this?
 
Luckily, it didn’t take long to figure it out. I didn’t have a keyboard to press ‘tilde’ and open the Console in the first place, so why would I need a keyboard in order to input Console Commands? Even better, this system was beyond intuitive… meaning that all I had to do was think about what I wanted, and it wrote out the relevant commands FOR me.
 
I, of course, immediately turned on God Mode first and foremost, before marking Svanna as an Essential Character a second later. I’d never used God Mode in any of my previous Skyrim Playthroughs, preferring to use cheatsy mods to make leveling up easier so I could feel like a badass without just outright making myself unkillable.
 
But this was real life, or as close to it as real life came for me these days. I wasn’t about to fuck around and find out if ANYTHING in this world could put me down, not when I could literally toggle a switch and become unkillable. On top of that, God Mode meant I had unlimited Magicka and Stamina as well… I had literally ascended to divinity.
 
Which brought to mind my next point of order, and my earlier thought about soon getting to live the Ten-Thousand Skills Experience. With XP Spells, I could probably level all of my Skills to Ten-Thousand in a couple of days… maybe a week, if I was underestimating the gulf just a little bit. It wouldn’t be difficult, just time consuming and tedious.
 
But why do that when I had the Console open right here and now and could just give myself a million experience in each Skill? Hell, I’d make it a hundred million, just to be safe…
 
And yet, I hesitate to do so, as I consider what will happen. Ever since I hit Level One-Thousand, I’ve been feeling it. The effect of having Skills at ten times the original cap has definitely been noticeable. I’ve grown tougher, stronger, faster. I’ve gained further insight into the people around me, been able to manipulate them more easily without Charm Magic, and all around started putting things together that I hadn’t before.
 
Even if the stereotypical D&D stats weren’t anywhere to be found on what really could barely be called a ‘character sheet’, I had this feeling that they were there anyways, lurking beneath the surface, possibly tied to both my levels and my skills. Heh, maybe it was the fact that I was now level ten-thousand that I was even self-aware enough and perceptive enough to realize that putting all of my Skills at Ten-Thousand at once would probably fuck me up for a little while.
 
… I was still going to do it anyways, though. I’m not going to say I’m no wuss, because I can totally be a wuss when my life is on the line, but my life isn’t on the line, not with God Mode on, and not with Svanna marked as an Essential Character. With my Dragonborn Waifu watching my back, all things are possible, heh.
 
That said… I drop out of Console Mode and look to Svanna with a grin, before offering her the Skeleton Key. She takes it and after barely a moment of thought, uses it on herself as well. I nod approvingly, even as she gasps for a second before pulling it back, clearly effected, though I doubt on the same level as me. That said, she WAS the Last Dragonborn. Her potential might not hold a candle to mine, but compared to someone like Mercer Frey? Might as well be a blazing hot sun.
 
Speaking of which… I look down at Mercer Frey and hop back into Console for a moment. Turning off his ‘combat AI’ takes a second, but once it’s done, I’m confident he’ll never be capable of fighting back again. He is quite literally defenseless now, thanks to my direct ability to access the inner workings of this world.
 
… That’s a heady feeling. Best if I get around to giving myself the intelligence to handle that power sooner, rather than later.
 
“Svanna, the Skeleton Key gave me the option to do something that some might consider inadvisable, but that I believe is directly related to figuring out why we were put in this world. So… I’m going to do it. That said, it might lay me out for a while. Need you to watch over me in the meantime, alright?”
 
Svanna blinks, and even begins to nod before hesitating and looking at me carefully, ever so slightly worried.
 
“… You’ll be okay?”
 
I give my lithe Dragonborn a grin and then for good measure, reach out to caress her cheek as I lean in and kiss her soundly. She kisses me back of course, hungrily, and if I didn’t eventually pull back, we would have made love right there in the dungeon chamber. But no… Skills first.
 
My eyes twinkling, I give Svanna a wicked grin.
 
“I’ll be more than okay, Svanna. Once I’ve done this, once I’ve… acclimated… you and I will be ready to take on the Gods.”
 
Svanna’s eyes widen at that… and then fill with delight. I chuckle, able to see I’ve got her interest. And yes, I mean it too. When I say Gods, I’m putting both Aedra and Daedra in that camp. We’re still going to go see Nocturnal after this, but for the first time, I’m not one bit concerned about what she or any of her fellow Daedric Princes might be able to do to us.
 
We weren’t trapped in here with them, they were trapped in here with US!
 
Stepping away from Svanna with one last nod of encouragement, I once again pull up the Console and set about making that a reality. I start with the Illusion Skill, of course. How can I not? It took me so far, and I’ll always appreciate Illusion Magic for what it did for me. Thinking at the Console brings up the command to give my Illusion Skill One Hundred Million Experience, and after a moment, I ‘send it’ so to speak.
 
Nothing happens of course, because the exp gain won’t take effect until I leave the Console. For a second, I consider doing so just to see what having one Skill at Ten-Thousand feels like. But no, there’s no half-assing this. If, say, putting Illusion at Ten-Thousand puts me out for an hour, I’d rather just do all eighteen skills at once and be out for eighteen hours.
 
And so, without any further hesitation, I begin to apply a hundred million skill experience to all eighteen of my Skills. After Illusion, I go for the ones that have always been near and dear to my heart, like Speech and Sneak, but after that, I just do them haphazardly, one after the other, until I can see from the Console itself that I’ve gotten all eighteen.
 
The last one, which took me forever to remember, is fucking BLOCK of all things. What a silly Skill… but it wasn’t like I was going to become god-like with seventeen of eighteen sills. That would be asinine.
 
With the easy part done, I prepare myself for what might be the hard part. I’ve only got a vague inkling of what awaits me outside of the Console, but I can’t hide in here forever. So, I do it, I exit the Console and watch as a flood of Skill Level Ups begin to hit my vision. It’s really not so bad though, and I look past them to give Svanna a smile.
 
“Oh, I was worried about… noth…ing.”
 
As I’m talking, everything starts to speed up, my vision goes white, and my eyes roll back in my head. My last conscious thought is one of embarrassment, before I’m forced into an unconscious state for the first time since arriving in this world.
 
-x-X-x-
 
Svanna’s eyes widen, and she leaps forward to catch Vayral as he falls. He’d told her he might be out of commission, but even still, she’s worried. Not fretful though at least. She appreciates he gave her the heads up, or she’d probably be freaking out. As is, she lets out a low sigh and carefully lays him on the ground for the moment. A glance at the Skeleton Key still in her hand has Svanna marveling at it.
 
She’s never felt better. It’s like that first time she sucked up a Dragon Soul at the tower outside of Whiterun… except it feels like she sucked up a thousand Dragon Souls, or something. She’s positively bursting with power, and best of all, it’s her own power, not worn power from the gear Vayral made for her. Not that Svanna doesn’t appreciate all Vayral has done for her, but… she does like this feeling, that she could go bare-naked and still go undetected in any city she skulked through.
 
Svanna’s eyes travel past the Skeleton Key, over to Mercer Frey. The man is still glazed over, even with Vayral out of commission, experimentally, Svanna draws his attention to herself and gives an order.
 
“Hop on one foot.”
 
Mercer does so, blankly, but nevertheless obeys her. But then, of course he does. Vayral wouldn’t abide by any of his thralls disobeying his Dragonborn? Svanna grins wolfishly and is just about to have Mercer do something else ridiculous, when a strained voice suddenly rings out from behind her.
 
“W-What… what are you doing?!”
 
Glancing back, Svanna sees that the Dunmer woman who tried to shoot her with that arrow is actually sitting up. To Svanna’s surprise, at that. She’d thought Vayral through the arrow back at Karliah with the intent to kill, especially with the way she’d toppled over and fallen down and not moved an inch afterwards.
 
Now though, Svanna suspects something else is involved. A toxin to induce paralysis, or something? That seemed the most likely, especially since Karliah had prioritized getting the arrow out of her, presumably to quicken the reduction of its effects. Now, the beautiful Dunmer is staring at Svanna and Mercer in confusion and disbelief... until she notices the Skeleton Key in Svanna’s hands.
 
As Svanna is noting how pretty Karliah is, and already fantasizing about forcing the other woman to submit to her and Vayral’s predatory lusts, Karliah’s violet eyes are bulging out of her skull.
 
“You! The Skeleton Key! How! No, Mercer must have had it! He took it from the Sepulcher?! D-Damn you Mercer, does your treachery know no limits?!”
 
Svanna cocks her head to the side, even as Karliah rants from her position on the ground, still recovering from the effects of her own arrow. Ah, but the Dunmer thief isn’t done.
 
“You! You must be careful with that! It is a Daedric Artifact, that of Nocturnal! You will draw her eye to you if you use it! You must…”
 
Karliah trails off, as she looks to Vayral insensate on the ground before Svanna, and then back to Svanna, and puts two and two together. Likely, she probably also caught some glimpses of what they were doing and saying while she was laying there paralyzed, and now has context to apply to all of that.
 
“Y-You both already used it. You f-fools. Nocturnal will… if you wish to live without Nocturnal’s shadow forever chasing you, you must listen to me!”
 
Svanna slowly gets to her feet and begins walking over to Karliah, even as the Dunmer woman gets more and more frantic, more and more insistent.
 
“We need to return to the Twilight Sepulcher this instant! From the look of things, Nocturnal has already taken her vengeance on your friend! His constitution must have been especially weak, if she was able to strike at him from this far away! If you come with me, and bring him along, maybe we can beg for Nocturnal’s forgiveness by returning the Skeleton Key to its-mmph!”
 
Having reached Karliah in the midst of her ranting, Svanna drops into a crouch and covers Karliah’s mouth with one hand, fingers digging into the pretty Dunmer’s jaw as she silences her.
 
“You talk too much. We’re not going anywhere with you. You’re coming with us. But I don’t think you need to worry. Vayral is looking forward to talking to Nocturnal. And if you’re a very good girl, he might even deign to bring you with us when we do. Now, shut up and stay down.”
 
Svanna likes to think she’s being very intimidating. She even growls at the end for good measure, mimicking some of the dragon roars she’s heard since coming back to Skyrim. She’s hoping Karliah will do the smart thing and not make Svanna do anything she’d regret… but alas.
 
In the end, Karliah does the only thing she probably thinks she can do. She tries to whip the arrow she’s pulled out of herself into Svanna’s side. She shouts as she does so, the arrowhead digging into Svanna’s flesh for a moment before Karliah pulls it out and jams it back in again. Svanna just waits, patiently, as the Dunmer thief does this a good twenty times before running out of strength. Or maybe she just finally notices that the wound she’s delivering to Svanna heals up instantly every time she makes it.
 
Regardless, Svanna just smiles, as Karliah looks at her with wide, confused eyes.
 
“That was a mistake.”
 
And then she punches the other woman in the head and knocks her the fuck out. Hm, maybe she’ll have to learn Charm Magic from Vayral, at some point. Or at the very least, get some Illusion Spells of her own. Because when he’s not around, she feels like she’s always being forced to resort to violence.
 
And now… Svanna sighs, as she straightens up and looks at both Karliah and Vayral. This was what she was talking about, about Karliah making her do something she’d regret. Because now she had TWO unconscious bodies to carry out of this place, and only one mind controlled Thieves Guild Leader to help.
 
How irritating.

-x-X-x-

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